Trump’s attack on Biden’s IRA spending could complicate Palisades restart effort

burning_money

[“Burning Money” image by Gene Case/Avenging Angels. It was featured on the cover of The Nation in 2003, accompanying an article by Christian Parenti, critical of the Bush/Cheney administration nuclear power relapse then underway.]

As reported by Tom Henry at the Toledo Blade. However, the article is behind a paywall.

Trump’s executive order regarding the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, and similar action against the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA, or Bipartisan Infrastructure Law) of 2021, could starve the Palisades zombie reactor of massive taxpayer funding requested by Holtec International for its unprecedented restart. Holtec is looking to various troughs of funding from both laws, totaling a shocking $8+ billion (with a B!) in mostly federal, but also State of Michigan, bailouts.

Palisades is located in Covert Township, just south of the City of South Haven, in Van Buren County, s.w. Michigan. It is immediately upon the beach of Lake Michigan, drinking water supply for 16 million people along its shores, including the City of Chicago.

Palisades was permanently shut down by its previous owner, Entergy, on May 20, 2022, supposedly for good. But Palisades took over the site, supposedly to decommission it, only to instead secretively apply to the U.S. Department of Energy and State of Michigan for many billions of dollars in taxpayer funds, to restart the more than half-century old, extremely problem-plagued reactor.

NIRS’s analysis of the IRA revealed that more than $380 billion (with a B!) in nuclear power subsidies had been authorized therein. The analysis also addressed additional billions of dollars in nuclear power subsidies contained in the IIJA.

Another $7.4 billion in federal funds, in the form of loan guarantees, for so-called “Small Modular Reactor” (SMR) design certification, construction, and operation, would come from the Energy Policy Act of 2005, and the follow on December 23, 2007 appropriations. Holtec has targeted Palisades for two SMR-300s (300 Megawatts-electric each), which would nearly double the tiny 432-acre site’s nuclear Mega-wattage. Holtec has also targeted Palisades’ sibling nuclear site, the closed and decommissioned Big Rock Point hundreds of miles north, in Hayes Township, between Charlevoix and Petoskey, likewise on the Lake Michigan shore. Whether Trump will order a freeze on these funds as well, remains to be seen.

Self-inflicted steam tube degradation, due to two years of neglect by the inexperienced and incompetent company, also puts in doubt Holtec’s late 2025 restart plans at Palisades.

The article quotes Beyond Nuclear’s radioactive waste specialist, Kevin Kamps:

Kevin Kamps, an activist with Maryland-based Beyond Nuclear who grew up near the plant, said that safety assurances are “very dubious, as [the] NRC is completely captured by the industry it is supposed to regulate.”

To learn more about Beyond Nuclear’s and our allies’ resistance to the Palisades zombification, see our one-stop-shop for related website posts, dating back to 2002:

“Newest Nuke Nightmares at Palisades.”

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